EPL: Man City's Milner eyes full points vs Everton

Manchester: James Milner has challenged Manchester City to seize the initiative in the Premier League title race when they face struggling Everton today.

Manchester City's James Milner

Manuel Pellegrini’s side are joint top of the table with Chelsea, behind the Blues only on alphabetical order, after hitting a rich vein of form in recent weeks.

The reigning champions trailed Jose Mourinho’s men by eight points in November and their indifferent form was raising questions over the future of Pellegrini. But those doubts have been swept aside amid a run of 13 games unbeaten in all competitions. Their only blip during the congested festive programme was a 2-2 draw with Burnley and Milner sees no reason why momentum cannot be maintained, starting at Goodison Park today.

“Hopefully we’ll be looking to open up a little gap of our own,” said Milner, who scored twice to seal last weekend’s 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup third round.

“You look at this run (ahead) and people think it is tougher than the games we had over Christmas but there are form teams and out-of-form teams. Every game is difficult. “You’ve got teams at the bottom who look and think, ‘We’re going to win that game.’

“Sometimes it is easier to play against teams who are mid-table and pushing for Europe. Who knows what an easy game is? It is the Premier League. “All we can do is concentrate on our games and if we can get the results we want to get, it depends on how Chelsea do.”